Newsletter 25th September 2018: Fortnite Tutors and Telltale Shutdown

Images of Fortnite and The Walking Dead are the property of Epic Games and Telltale Games respectively.

Hello everyone! It’s been a month since Load Last Save was started. I feel like I have learned enormous amounts during these weeks. But this is only the beginning. More on that in the blog section of the newsletter.

Articles

Remembering Telltale Games: The biggest gaming news of the week is the shut-down of Telltale Games. The company laid off approximately 250 employees, and only 25 were left to run the day-to-day business. Even though the studio seemed to produce games people love, that did not translate to sales. The story might get a happy ending, with companies like Naughty Dog and Ubisoft offering jobs to people laid off.

Living The Stream: On a brighter side of news, Fortnite streamer Tyles “Ninja” Blevins will appear on the cover of the October ESPN magazine. He is the first video game player to be featured on the cover of the magazine. This got the gaming community pretty excited, and I have to say it does feel good. Go Ninja!

Research

This week I went over some gamification research and came across the Bartle Test. Richard Bartle divides players into four types: Achievers, Explorers, Socializers, and Killers. The paper where the framework was introduced was released in 1996. For gamers, these four types might be self-explanatory. For everyone else, here’s a quick explanation:

Achievers are first and foremost looking to advance in the game by leveling up or unlocking achievements.

Explorers take the time to study the game world and its mechanics. They will try to build a holistic picture of the game and exploit it.

Socializers take the time to get to know the people in the game and find the social aspects the most rewarding.

Killers are looking to cause distress to other players and benefit from it.

You probably have a pretty good idea which group you lean towards. However, all of us have the characteristics of each type. If you are unsure or just curious, I found one variation of the test here. And by the way, I’m first and foremost an explorer!

Blog

It’s been a hectic week for the blog! I wrote a couple of new posts on gamification examples and Candy Crush Saga game mechanics. At the same time, I tested a couple of new graphics styles especially aimed at Pinterest marketing. I am hesitant about Pinterest because it is so dominated by lifestyle and photography. The following weeks will show whether it works or not. In the process, I will be updating some of the older posts for better optimization for social media.

In other social media related points, the blog’s Twitter profile got its first 50 followers. The number of followers seems to grow fairly in line with the number of tweets (58 vs 55 at the time of writing). This week I also introduced a Twitter follower bar and subscription pop-up on the blog. These are done with the Sumo suite of tools, which I find incredibly helpful at this point. I also attended one of their webinars on growing the number of customers in your online business.

This week I was also pointed to the Grammarly browser extension. It checks the language of all of your writing, making it easier to write flawless English. Again, extremely helpful in improving the quality of my content. However, I have to say I sometimes disagree with the suggestions it makes.

Finally, I am looking to create a free offering as an incentive to subscribe to new updates. I have a few ideas of what it could be. Foremost I think it would be about applying enterprise gamification practices to your personal life. Stay tuned!